GATEWAY BIBLE LEARNING COMMUNITY

PRODUCTIVE PERSONAL QUIET TIMES – A 4-WEEK CURRICULUM COURSE

COURSE DESCRIPTION  

This course focuses on learning how to have effective personal Bible study.

The need for personal Bible study.

Deciding what to study – (word picture, character, personal life condition, etc.)

Reading, contemplating, questioning, discussing, understanding and comprehending.

• What did the author want the original listeners/readers to understand/do?
• Reading contextually and exegetically. (unpacking the text correctly) o What are some cultural/historical backgrounds to the scripture/story?
• The call for correct understanding
• Developing stronger convictions (beliefs) that define our Christian faith (e.g. God & his revealed holistic nature in his story.

OBJECTIVE

This class is designed to help grow participants desire to study the Bible faithfully and correctly.

• Help combat spiritual complacency and dependence on one verse daily microwave Bible study.
• Help participants to comprehend how the original readers and listeners understood the Scripture and what they were expected to respond.
• Help grow participants understanding of the application of scripture today in the readers life.

COURSE MISSION

• To help equip participants develop powerful desire to engage in personal study of scriptures, and how to correctly read and understand the Bible.
• To help equip participants on how to identify & understand the plotlines (main and sub), the cultural and historical distances.
• To help equip the participants on how to apply the learnings to ourselves in our contemporary world today and grow towards living out Jesus’s mission.

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES

Specifically, participants will be able to achieve more:

▪ Growth in personal Bible study and in life application.

DELIVERY METHODOLOGY

1. Interactions will be face to face, through PowerPoint presentations and in-depth class syndicate discussions. These will be from 8:30am-9:30am every Sunday for 4-weeks.
2. Pre-read class materials will be sent to participants’ email in-boxes or texts before each class.
3. Each week, participants share how learning has been practiced during the previous week.
4. Participants will share show-stoppers to personal Bible Study.

WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW

1. The Scriptures have literary design. Biblical authors invite serious readers to discover this.
   1. Read and reread text. Keep track of your sets of observations.
   2. Analyze the cues to understand the structure and the boundaries of the text.
   3. Pay careful attention to recurrent words, recurrent imagery, and recurrent story. Each individual story contains elements (story, character, and setting).
   4. Pay attention to how does repeated words connect multiple literary settings.

2. The Bible was written in a language and culture vastly different from our own. Sometimes, our English translations sometimes do not help us understand what the biblical authors initial meant.

COURSE OVERVIEW – SUMMARY

Wk.	Reading Plan	Duration (mins)	Syndicate Discussion	Teaching Moment	Assignment
1	The need for personal Bible study. Deciding what to study. Reading, contemplating, questioning, discussing, understanding and comprehending.		Have volunteers share: *How they currently identify their BS needs. *How they decide what to study. *How they decide the Bible text(s) to study. *How much they read. *How they engage the study. *Biblical hermeneutics	*Harmonize sharing and extend how to decide what to study from life conditions. *Teach selecting texts to study. Introduce modes during study, Introduce hermeneutics and practice.	Optional
2	What did the author want the original listeners/readers to understand/do? Reading contextually and exegetically. (unpacking the text correctly)		*Understanding hermeneutic triangle *Understanding exegesis *Application(s) today.	Teach hermeneutic triangle. Teach exegesis. Teach application(s) and practice	Optional
3	Practicing personal Bible study.		Have participants share and demonstrate some  quiet times in class.	Class practice	Optional
4	Preparing outlines from Bible study.		Have participants share and create an outline from a Bible study in class.	Class practice	Optional

MODES TO BE IN DURING BIBLE STUDY

Discovery/new discovery. (patterns, culture, meaning, response, repetitions & what they mean (words/sentences), authors’ goal(s), portrait/nature of God, what God wants, melodies, … reading to get the “Big” Picture, understand that the Bible was written 4 us, but not 2 us, context is critical, it is not all figurative- but some parts are.

Learning. Unlearning and re-learning. God’s “words” are vehicles of his thoughts. His words transport his thoughts to readers/listeners. (lead words, load bearing words, seemingly harsh words may be communication something huge/deep, interlinearity, thematic connections)

Destructible – perspective of God, and how it affects our lives both now and eternally (Mind shifts, accepting tensions with traditional knowledge)

Investment. (time, attention, listening energy)

Feeding and drinking. (Hunger and thirst – Acts 17:27, Eph.1:23)

Questioning lens. How might the writer and the HS be calling reader to apply the meaning of the text?

Call for the reader.